The 2024 Federal Budget

One of my rules of politics is if a political party's opponents are loudly and repeatedly condemning a policy or a Bill in Parliament it is because they know that it could resonate with Canadians.

I am reminded of this rule by the continued reaction to the 2024 Budget.

Really, in most cases the budget is in the news for a single news cycle and then the media and the Opposition politicians go back to talking about the banal and the inane. That was not the case this time.

My favourite so far is some of the doctors being trotted out by the media to show the "error" of the changes in the capital gains taxes. I recall seeing one doctor, who is younger than me, stating that the changes could cause doctors to close up shop. The idea of course is to try to scare Canadians into rejecting a policy that only impacts a very small minority of Canadians by claiming it could lead to a doctors shortage. 

Of course, if you just use a small amount of critical thinking yo would realize that the main source of income for doctors is practicing medicine. If they stop doing that no amount of capital gains will compensate for that lost income. So closing up shop is not really an option, unless you were planning on retiring soon anyway. 

Then there is the old chestnut that doctors will head South. Again, a little critical thinking will help you realize that the American Medical Association might have a say in that plan and the cost of developing a new practice in a new country is much more than the loss in capital gains that would result from the very modest changes in the 2024 Budget.

There has been some talk about the deficit but the 2008 financial crisis and the cost of the COVID supports in 2020-2021 has demonstrated that the old deficit bugbear is not to be feared. Throw in the fact the deficit hawks only complain about deficits when they pay for social programs but are strangely quiet when they pay for tax cuts and you can safely ignore them.

Yes, yes, I know the argument that tax cuts are supposed to be better for the economy than government spending but that is ideological BS of the highest order. The simple fact is tax cuts and government spending are one in the same, just ways to get money into the economy. They both have their place but if the objective of a policy is to assist people with finding affordable housing then investing in programs to do that will be much more effective than a $200/year tax cut.

I have read the budget and it is actually quite ambitious, more ambitious than that last couple at least. I do not agree with all of its policies but I am all for the government taking real action on some of the issues that they outline in the document. It is about time.

Now if only this government could screw up the political courage to finally do something other than pay lip service to finding out whether and how the auto-fuel companies are colluding on price. When every company raises their prices by 20 cents all on the same night, within minutes of each other, a case could be made to suspect collusion and to go beyond the usual pro-forma inquiries that happen when the auto-fuel companies get too greedy.

The Foreign Interference in Canadian Politics Inquiry

I read that the inquiry is hearing witnesses. I am not paying much attention to this inquiry. I will wait for the final report. However, I will say that if that final report does not include any attempts to follow the money then the whole thing is a colossal waste of time.

I am not going to attempt to guess the final outcome except for two points.

The first is no federal political party is going to come out of this smelling like a rose. There are many foreign actors that do not like democracy and they want to discredit it. They really do not have any allegiance to any Canadian political party. They choose targets of opportunity regardless of partisan considerations. If the inquiry discovers those situations all of the political parties at the federal level will have red faces. There are other foreign actors that have a preferred Canadian political party and it will be interesting to see if the inquiry identifies them and who they are supporting.

The second is the reaction to the final report will be along partisan lines. That is, each political party will grab hold of the parts of the report that hurts their opponents and benefits them. As well, we can expect our largely Conservative media to play up any foreign interference that either benefited or was perceived to benefit the Liberals while they play down or ignore interference that benefited the Conservatives. 

In the end we will have to see what is in the report and then it will be up to us voters to decide what we consider to be legitimate political actions by foreign actors and what we consider to be illegitimate foreign interference in our political system, institutions and processes. 

Him, Her, They, Them

I was born a male. That is, I have certain genitalia typical of the male of the human species and I am unable to bear children.

I am also a man. Is there a difference?

Yes. With rare exceptions there are only two biological sexes for our species and every other mammalian species. That fact cannot be disputed. However, your biological sex at birth is not the only determinant of ones sex or gender. Psychology plays a much bigger role.

I am not a man because I have certain sex organs. I am a man because I think like a man, I feel like a man and for lack of a better phrase I identify as a man. Sexism, feminism and all sorts of other "isms" only exist because we have a brain that allows us to have values and beliefs about ourselves and our world. I believe I am a man but, here is the kicker, I do not know why I believe that. I do not know the reason that when I was young I believed I was a boy and when I became old enough I started to believe I was a man. It just happened. Maybe it was genetic. Maybe it was the environment I grew up in. I cannot be certain.  

So if the biggest part of being a man or a woman is in our heads why are people surprised that some might not be able to reconcile how they feel about themselves with their biological sex? There are over 7 billion of us on this planet so it stands to reason that some of us would not be wired like everybody else.

Looking back at my childhood I can recall some kids that did not fit the mold of being typical boys and girls, as dictated by the norms of society. Could they have been having difficulty with their gender identities? We know back then that talking about that kind of thing was a one way ticket to trouble. We know that gays and lesbians did what they had to do to avoid being persecuted so I would not be surprised that those who were atypical genders would have to do the same thing, or more likely, they had no way to really process their feelings in a useful way so they just suffered and did their best to cope.

Alot of time has passed and now people can be more honest with themselves and they have the freedom to explore themselves with less fear of persecution. That is probably why it seems that this phenomenon seems to have come upon us suddenly. We know that homosexuality was much more prevalent than outward appearances made it appear so it would make sense that the same can be true of atypical genders.

The biggest fear that homosexuals created amongst us straight folks was that being around them could cause their homosexuality to rub off on us, or worse yet our children. I feel that same fear is being felt about people with atypical genders. To which I say, stop worrying. It does not rub off. If their existence is causing you to doubt your own gender it is not because them it is because of your own psychology and it has been proven again and again that no amount of persecution of someone will allow you to reconcile the conflict you may be experiencing.